From tales of the child ghost who sings "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to the apparition of a young woman in her nightgown waving to her husband from the porch, hours after she died, writer and storyteller Charles Adams III had people on the edges of their chairs Saturday afternoon at the Allentown Library.

Adams, a native of Reading and noted author, speaker and ghost tour escort, regaled a group of about 30 people with tales of murder and ghostly mayhem throughout the Lehigh and Schuylkill valleys.

Dressed in black pants, a white shirt, black cape, black hat, and carrying a silver-topped cane, Adams wove enough tension through his stories that even in the brightly lit library meeting room, a sudden stomp of his foot was enough to make audience members jump in their seats.

"Do you have a closet in your room?" he asked one young boy. When the boy said yes, Adams asked if the door ever opened on its own. When the boy said that it sometimes does, Adams asked if anything had ever come out.

The boy said no, and Adams told him to watch tonight and see what happens, making the audience — including the boy with the possibly haunted closet — let out a nervous laugh.

Adams, who has written some 30 books on the paranormal, including "Ghost Stories of the Lehigh Valley," said the area is rife with ghostly activity.

There's a restored 18th century farmhouse where the current owners regularly hear the sounds of something falling down the stairs and crashing into the closed front door, and the sound of a young boy singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

The couple learned that a boy who lived in the house years ago, and loved to sing, died when he fell down the steps and hit the front door, breaking his neck.

At another area house, a young husband kissed his sleeping wife goodbye as he left for work early one morning. When he came home that evening, he saw her on the front porch, waving to him. But when he got to the porch, she was gone. He couldn't find her anywhere in the house either, and finally found her in bed, where she died that morning.

Adams said there are haunted wells, farms, roads, and houses throughout the area. From Getter's Island near Easton to the ghost of "Mad Anthony" Wayne looking for his bones between Erie and Radnor, he said the area's rich history has provided plenty of ghost stories over the years.

To fully appreciate such local lore, he said, people need to keep their imaginations active. He referenced the habit horror writer Stephen King has had since childhood of keeping his arms and legs securely in his bed, lest any monsters underneath should grab him.

"I don't want people around me who can't be like that," Adams said. "If you can be like that, it means you have an imagination. It means you still have that sense of wonderment."